Also Available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, and more! Warning: we cover a few heavy topics this episode Lauren Crow is the President and CEO (Steer) of The Troth, the oldest, largest and only woman-lead international organization for inclusive Heathenry, and Gythia of the Black Beard Kindred of Central Arkansas. In addition, […]
AGF 108 – Lauren Crow, the Steer of the Troth
Paganism
Beginning the Year of Aun
My Heathen and Heathen-adjacent, animist, and various polytheist folks in my community met for the Year of Aun on January 7th. We feasted as a community. Then, we lit a Sacred Fire. I started with flint and steel on charcloth, and put the cloth in gathered fluff from cattails that grew on my land. We started the fire with cardboard, and added wood another of our members brought. The Fire didn’t come to light until my friend Storm, who is a Sister of mine that I have had the pleasure of starting and tending many of these Sacred Fires with over courses of a weekend, came near. Everything caught in a few moments.
We made offerings of herbs, starting with tobacco since we live in Michigan, and then followed with many of the Nine Sacred Herbs. I explained the Year of Aun again then so we were grounded in the purpose of the rite.
We cleansed with the Fire. Since many could not approach the Fire I took Fire to them and cleansed them.
Josie had made Aun out of bread. We each took a piece, tearing apart Aun, and gave him and his wrongs to the fire, and dedicated ourselves to becoming good Ancestors. We each dedicated, in some way, to bringing balance to our lives, our communities, and to Jörð. When we were finished here, we sang, prompted by our friend Raven, a wordless tune that we all caught up and was drummed with. Folks took turns making declarations, prayers, and the like. When were finished we thanked Aun for his example, reaffirmed our dedication to being better Ancestors, and made offerings to the gathered Ginnreginn (Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir), including the Sacred Fire.
It is a simple and good start to getting the wheel of this year turning, and I look forward to this Fire being carried by each of us, through all our celebrations, through the coming year. Already I am seeing folks begin to come back into balance with Jörð and the various Ginnreginn, with our own communities, and ourselves. Some of these transitions are hard, deeply painful, and even so, they are worth it. May each of us carry that Sacred Fire and the dedication to be the best Ancestors we can through this Aun Year, and the years to come. Hail to all who light their Sacred Fires, to all those who seek to address the damages of Aun, and to rebalance themselves with the Ginnreginn and one another.
Ves þú heil!
A Lay for the Wild Hunt
The horde roaves roads of forests,
Roaming the wild of the world
Across field and fen, frost and flame
The host fairs forth
Gods and great Dead are the vanguard,
Wolves and wild things follow and watch the ways
Above come ravens and crows in the wake
Between are those borne and brought into stride
The sunsets are stained dark with blood
Shadows teem and swallow the night
The sound of their sumons are hooves and howls
Carrying the calls of the Wild Hunt’s host
Offer, lest the door be darkened
Good beer, bread, or blade freely given
For many are the mouths of the might Hunt
And satisfaction ever They seek
Join, if you are of a mind to journey
To scout and slaughter, by blade, bow, or bite
Among man and monster one may find their kin
Blessed by the ways of the Wild
On the Need for Deeper Conversations
An issue I have seen come to the fore a few times around now as a polytheist, animist, Pagan, and Heathen, is the idea of 100, 200, and 300-level discourse. I touched on this with my post on being a teacher in the Heathen communities, but not as in depth as I will go into here. I have had an issue with these various communities for quite a while: so much of the material out there is 100-level material, and what material does make it to 200 or 300+ often does not get discussed or receives much in the way of support. What is worse, is that because folks are constantly reinventing the wheel, proverbially or mythologically take your pick, we never really progress far beyond 100 or 200-level in our writing or experiences.
The posts I have been writing on spiritual politics have been fairly cathartic for me because it is digging into deeper stuff than 100 or 200-level. To be frank, I find the spiritual politics discussions to be 300-level or better for the most part. While there is nothing wrong with most folks stopping after 100 or 200-level, we as collective communities need to be more engaged in deeper discussions if we hope to develop them further. For the most part this takes us away from the well-worn path of the written and archaeological sources.
Why?
Because our useful information stops. At some point there is not any more information to reconstruct from unless we are willing to look at other sources. In the case for Heathens this is tends toward looking to folklore, and Lacouteaux is one of our best English-translated resources for this. Once you hit a certain period though, the folklore either stops being relevant or the descriptions of concepts or Beings, like particular vaettir like the dvergar and álfar, tend to blend together. The information just stops being relevant to Heathenry after a certain point. This takes a lot of Heathens out of their comfort zone because from here on out everything is based in personal and communal experience, knowledge, and experimentation.
This unwillingness within large parts of the community to work beyond the bounds of the source material of the home culture(s) our Heathen worldview is based in cuts us off from considering and then exploring both the heights and depths that are possible within Heathenry. If all we ever consider is what is essentially 100 and 200 material at most then we cannot develop much as communities. We also cannot develop expertise in various fields within them, or even individually. If we limit ourselves to what has been found in the written sources we are mostly limiting ourselves to what the elites wanted written down and what has been filtered through Christian lenses in both the sources we have and most of their interpretation. Even if we include what we have through archaeological investigation we have precious little to go on outside of certain better-represented time periods and classes of people. Common people are woefully underrepresented in both written and archaeological sources. It is hard to overstate how much physical material is completely lost to time.
This overreliance on written and archaeological academia to act as an arbiter for our religious communities keeps us from the full range of Heathen religious expressions, understandings, and experiences because we have limited our options of what is possible. In so doing we cut off our ability to innovate, to develop new ways of living with our Ginnreginn, and to bring our experiences into the accepted customs and expression. In short, we cut off our ability to form living cultures. To be clear, reconstructionism is a methodology that relies on good data from academia to both keep the process honest and be useful to the projects we have. However, written and archaeological sources are the maps and not the territory of our lived religions. We cannot be bound not to see a mountain or valley because the map is out of date.
This gating off conversations to mostly 100-level subjects serves another purpose: it keeps a captive audience for books and other forms of media creation in its easiest-to-market niche. 100-level books tend to generate the most revenue in part because they are the only ones available to the everyday person, seeing both the widest distribution and marketing. The religion sections for most bookstores are vanishingly small, and most tend to be full of Christian books with a smattering of Buddhist, Hindu, and Jewish books. I have to look elsewhere for anything related to our religions, often in the New Age or similar sections, and these tend to be mostly 100-level books on witchcraft like Wicca for the Solitary Practitioner by Scott Cunningham.
This trend also exists in other forms of media, including my own. I spent 19 YouTube videos exploring The Basics of Heathenry. While it did take a bit of time and work to script, record, and edit, it is information I already knew, have taught in other contexts like workshops, and required no deep vulnerability on my part to impart to others. I am fortunate in that I am not bound to this, either for purposes of income or interest, and that both 3 Pagans on Tap and Around Grandfather Fire have a lot of leeway to dig deeper and reach higher. With the initial Basics of Heathenry project finished, I can explore other topics relevant to Heathens. This takes more work, not in terms of gathering information, but willingness to be vulnerable and talk about my experiences, views, and how the shape my Heathen exoteric and esoteric practice has been changed by these.
This is an aspect of the deeper conversations seldom talked about: getting deeper into conversation and moving beyond the 101 requires a vulnerability that laying down the basic theology, praxis, and structures of Heathenry does not require. Even some 200-level conversations on subjects like the basics of how to do magic can be so dependent on one’s home culture, focus, and individual expression that it opens us up to scrutiny in ways merely talking about what magic is in Heathenry does not. For example, how one does útiseta might be a 200 or 300-level conversation. Depending on what comes out of the experiences you have with it, though, you might be having 400+-level conversations. In other words, the folks you hope to talk with about the subject at hand are going to need to have significant knowledge and experience with the topic, not merely a basic theoretical understanding, to have dialogue with you.
What information you get and what one does with the information can hit depths most folks are uncomfortable talking with. Perhaps the vaettir have touched on sensitive areas like trauma, or just subjects we are unfamliar with. Perhaps the vaettir are contravening written or archaeological evidence or including information simply not found in them. Even setting aside the esoteric side of things, developing theology, praxis, and structures beyond the basics requires us to be open to scrutiny, our methods to be open to examination, and our conclusions to be disagreed with unless we are determined to share nothing with one another.
Let me say this as clearly as possible: cultural appropriation should be condemned. Note, that I am not saying cultural appreciation or exchange should be condemned; appropriation should be. With this in mind I think it is worth us looking at what it is folks are looking for when they are reaching for pathways that are not open to them. In other words, are they reaching for something they ought not to because their own path(s) are lacking something essential they see within that culture, cultural practice, spiritual technology, etc? To be sure, some folks are reaching because they want what cannot be theirs out of a sense of entitlement. I find for those who are not, especially with white polytheists, Pagans, witches, and others in our communities who do this reaching, is that the majority of them are looking for authenticity and connection. While the desire for authenticity and connection are good things to pursue, this desire needs to be turned towards the pathways that are open to us.
If our conversations only stay in the 100, 200, or 300-level range then not only do our conversations never deepen, our experiments, experiences, and development as communities stay here as well. If we do not face our lack of resources and the new territory before us with bravery, then we condemn many of us to hunger for authenticity and connections that cannot be made without them. Rather than making a kind of Heathenry which only grasps at, or for, the spiritual technology, perspectives, information, and living wisdom of other paths, we Heathens need to dig deeper, carve surer, and explore even further with our Ginnreginn into our own forms of spiritwork, magic, folklore, and relationships with the Ginnreginn. We need to be brave enough to develop our spiritual technologies, perspectives, information, and lived wisdom with our Ginnreginn. Let us do the work to improve the soil of Heathenry for everyone as we settle our roots, communally and individually, even deeper into our Heathen religions, practices, and spiritwork.
It is easy to say “We need to talk more about x or y” or “we need to dig in deeper into a topic at such-and-such a level”. How, though, do we do that? For starters we need to be really clear on what we mean by 100, 200, 300, and above. Are we talking for exoteric only? What about esoteric topics? Do we put exoteric and esoteric topics together, or try our best to keep them separate? I cannot answer this for everyone, I can only make my thoughts on the subject known, and hope to further dialogue. It might be that thinking of things in this way is completely backwards, or just the wrong way to go as a model. However, we do need to begin to have some dialogue about it and this is using models of experience and expertise that we have. Wherever we can, we should develop our own ways of understanding and reckoning our ideas, experiences, and expertise as animists, as polytheists, and as Heathens.
I am going to propose a structure so that we can get to deeper conversations. It is not the do-all end-all, but my hope is that it can be a good place to start. Exoteric is defined as “suitable for or communicated to the general public. not belonging, limited, or pertaining to the inner or select circle, as of disciples or intimates. popular; simple; commonplace. pertaining to the outside; exterior; external.” Exoteric practices, then, are those that are obvious, that anyone in a given religion can do. For Heathens these are things like hearth cultus, prayer, making offerings, and doing basic divination, such as a simple yes/no to see if an offering or sacrifice was accepted. Whatever these practices are requires no special knowledge, training, expertise, or study to do right or well.
Esoteric is defined as “understood by or meant for only the select few who have special knowledge or interest; recondite:poetry full of esoteric allusions. belonging to the select few. private; secret; confidential. (of a philosophical doctrine or the like) intended to be revealed only to the initiates of a group:the esoteric doctrines of Pythagoras.” Where exoteric practices are those that anyone can do, esoteric practiced are generally only regularly practiced by a handful of individuals. For Heathens, among these folks would, among many possible practices, be those who engage in Runework, seiðr, spá, and/or those who work to cultivate direct encounters with the Ginnreginn.
Now, if this last part seems like it is a mainstay of modern Pagan religions, including Heathenry, it is. A lot of modern Pagan religions in America can trace their start to the influence of Wicca. It was not and is not unusual for a lot of American animists, polytheists, Heathens, and Pagans in general to get their start in various Wiccan or Wiccan-derived religions. At some point folks in this circumstance may bring in additional religious identities or transition out of the Wiccan/Wicca-derived religion. Since Heathenry is not doctrinally exclusivist most folks bring their practices and experiences that worked from previous religions with them into it.
There are plenty of other reasons for why folks in modern Heathenry have or are incorporating esoteric practices. Some folks come into Heathenry through direct experience of the Ginnreginn and develop an exoteric practice in response to that. Other folks in modern times are actively moving away from religions which are primarily exoteric or have few accessible/desirable esoteric practies. Whatever the reason, a significant amount of folks in modern American Heathenry have religious practices that are a blend of exoteric and esoteric.
For purposes of our conversation, and to deepen it, I will put forward that most esoteric discussion is going to be 300-level for the most part. Why?
100-level subjects are the rudiments and baselines of Heathen practice. This is how to start and engage in the absolute basics of the religion. Among 100-level subjects would be about Who the Ginnreginn are, the particular Heathen cosmology one is part of and how we fit into it, how to begin and maintain a hearth cult, how to pray, how to offer, and how to maintain right relationship with the Ginnreginn.
200-level subjects build on the rudiments and baseline. This includes many of the ‘why’ for why we do a thing at the 100-level. Some folks may find it odd that I put the most of the ‘why’ behind the 200-level and not 100. The reason for that is the practice of Heathenry is something that can be understood in its basic forms by most anyone who engages in it. My young kid does not understand all the ins and outs of the religion. At the 100-level understanding the why we do a thing is simpler or is less pressing than understanding the what or how of doing something. When we make prayers at the stalli, she knows the expectation is to look at the Ginnreginn when we do so, and to bow when we are finished. It will be some time before she has the capacity to understand all the “whys” for why we do what we do.
Examples of 200-level subjects would be: connecting with Gods in ritual through the use of particular heiti, beginning reconstruction and revival work in general, and the use of basic liturgical language in ritual. I consider developing or working with liturgical language beyond some basic phrases or words, such as those used to greet Ginnreginn, to be higher than 200. It requires specialized knowledge and experience to do well. Other examples of 200-level practices would be applying genealogical resources to Ancestor cultus, engaging in more specialized cultus than the hearth like an athletic cultus or a cultus based in a field of study, and producing religious artwork, prayers, and rituals. Using 200-level courses in college as our basis here, 200s are often the applications of the basic subjects you learned about into specialized ways that deepen your knowledge, understanding, and expertise of the subject.
300-level subjects are about building expertise from the previous levels, generally towards an object of study. In college level courses these tend to go towards Bachelor and Master degrees, and the focus is a lot narrower than the previous courses. In my experience, specific forms of psychology were covered as part of getting through my BS in Psychology program. The higher the number the more specialized and nuanced the topic, eg the lower 300s were broader like Abnormal Psychology and the higher 300s were courses like Statistics in Psychology. 400-level courses were mostly relegated to Master degrees, 600 to PhD, and 700 to postdoc courses.
Examples of 300-level subjects would be the study of seiðr, spá, Runework, and in my view, any form of spiritwork I could think of. There is a need for foundation in and grounding in the basics and study of 100 and 200-level work in order to effectively understand what we are doing, why, how it works, and what the effects of a given action can entail. That grounding in the basics of Heathenry are necessary to troubleshoot and to determine when a given form of spiritwork would be effective, or if it would be called for at all. The grounding in 100 and 200-level work is necessary for discernment for ourselves, and especially if we hope to do any of this work for others. This grounding is also necessary for developing theonyms, toponyms, and related new infromation that we can bring to bear for our communities that may not require direct experience of the Ginnreginn, yet nonetheless it requires a firm foundation of knowledge to do well.
Suffice it to say, these metaphors for where we are, and where we hope to go, have limits. There is no certification process for a spiritworker beyond the Ginnreginn and maybe a teacher and/or a given community. If folks find the metaphor clunky to the point of being unwieldy, or even find the metaphor offensive, feel free to toss it and suggest another.
In no small part, why I feel so strongly on the need for deeper conversation is that they’re happening anyhow, and developing the means for understanding where we are, where we are going, and how we wish to develop ourselves individually and communally are well within our hands. Another reason is that these more esoteric questions and subjects of study, experience, and interaction with the Ginnreginn heavily impact our communities. There is direct good and harm that comes from entertaining these ideas, let alone engaging in the study and experience of the ideas here. Far better for us to take an active interest in developing the conversations for our own sakes than to find ourselves in situations where we have to make judgment calls we are not prepared for. By moving these conversations along we can better situate our communities for the future they will be coming into. My hope is that, looking back, we will see our efforts as turning points that brought needed dialogue and work to our communities that inform and empower both exoteric and esoteric expression within and between our communities far into the future.
Calling to Our Ancestors 2nd Edition
Hey folks. I am putting together the 2nd Edition of Calling to Our Ancestors. I have the outline written. I am looking for contributors. Do you have Ancestor workers’ voices you think should be included? Poems, prayers, songs, essays, artwork, rituals, etc that you are allowed to share?
Prayers, poems, and rituals can be as long or short as you feel called to write them. Artwork should be at least 300 dpi preferably in lossless formats so it prints well on publication. Essays should be at minimum 700 words. All contributors retain rights to their work. If you are interested in contributing please contact me at sarenth@gmail.com. I will need a legal name and address to send a release form to you, as well as what name you would like the work published under.
I am looking to pull together as many resources for folks as I can. Do you have videos, eg on YouTube or documentaries you would recommend covering Ancestors, Ancestor work, rituals, etc? Podcasts? Books? Audiobooks and written? Blogs? Folks that are trusted Ancestor workers?
My aim with this 2nd Edition is to address what folks were most often telling me they wanted from the 1st Edition: more information on actually venerating and working with the Ancestors.
I have finally begun to put my fingers to the keys again to get the initial outline copied over from my Tūl notebook to my Google Docs.
This is what the outline currently looks like. I am having an issue getting it to look exactly like my outline in Google Docs, since I organize I, A, i, then a, and WordPress is being frustrating with formatting.
- Introduction
- Dedication
- Foreword
- Notes on the Second Edition
- The Ancestors
- Who They Are
- Worship and Veneration
- A Basic Polytheist Ancestor Altar and/or Shrine
- Offerings
- Acts of Service
- Sacrifice
- Expanding Ancestors
- Marriage
- Employment
- Profession/Craft
- Adoption
- Initiation/Acceptance into a Lineage
- Death
- Reducing Ancestors
- Divorce
- Retirement/Firing
- Putting a craft/job down
- Cutting out/leaving family/relatives
- Removal/Leaving/Exile, eg excommunication in Christianity, ADF stripping Bonewitz’ ancestry
- Not worshiping/venerating abusive dead people
- Ancestor Veneration vs Worship vs Work
- Definitions
- Differences between them
- Similarities
- Talking With The Ancestors
- Divination
- Dreams
- Clairaudience, clairsentience, etc.
- Speaking out loud at the altar/shrine
- Rituals
- Rituals for Connection
- Regular devotionals
- Sample devotional rites
- Simple
- Drinking a cup of coffee/tea/water with the Ancestors after a simple cleansing
- Complex
- At least once a week making prayers and leaving an offering on the shrine and cleaning it within a prescribed time.
- Prayer beads
Special events, eg marriage, coming of age, etc - Funerary Rites
- Rituals for Healing
- Rituals for Reconciliation
- With living descendents present, eg the victims of a dead abuser coming together and holding him to account with the Ancestors
- Bringing healing to Ancestors through a healing ritual bringing the powerful Ancestors together with one’s Gods of healing and family lines.
- Rituals for Reckoning
- Abusive dead in the line
- Wrongs done by one’s Ancestors to another’s
- Independent cutting of cords so a harmful Ancestor is outside of your cultus until and unless they do right.
- Open Doors -Ancestor Workers
- What They Are
- What They Do
- Basic Skills
- Being Called
- Doing the Work
- Essays
- Rituals
- Prayers
- Resources
- Ancestor Books (print, digital, and audiobook)
- YouTube, podcasts, and other media on Ancestors and Ancestor work
- People willing to be contacted for Ancestor Work
Patreon Poem/Prayer/Song 48: For Jarnsaxa
If you want to submit a request for a prayer, poem, or song to be written to you privately or to be posted on this blog or my Patreon for a God, Ancestor, or spirit, sign up for the Ansuz and above level here on my Patreon.
This was requested by Vixen for Jarnsaxa.
The iron sax gleams free from the sheathe
Drawn thirsty
Its cut is wide, its bite deep
The mighty arm falls with the bright fang
Drinking greedily
Felling the doughty foe
Great is the battle-Goddess
Steel-spined
Victory claimed in strength
Patreon Poem/Prayer/Song 45: For Allmother Frigga
If you want to submit a request for a prayer, poem, or song to be written to you privately or to be posted on this blog or my Patreon for a God, Ancestor, or spirit, sign up for the Ansuz and above level here on my Patreon.
This was requested by Maleck Odinsson for Allmother Frigga.
Holy One
Who loves Her People
Who loves Her Children
Born from Her or Another
Hail to You!
Secret Weaver
Who knows Urðr’s tapestry
Who ties the warp with care
Who draw the weft with precision
Who wields the sword with skill
Hail to You!
Allmother
Whose regal bearing inspires
Whose countenance stills
Whose words are matchless
Whose power is undeniable
Hail to You!
Hail to You!
Hail to You, Almóðir!
Deity Work v Being a Polytheist
Rotwork wrote a post here exploring the idea of deity work that I will be pushing back on, and adding my own thoughts as I go.
Before I begin I want to be clear: I respect Rotwork a lot. I get that a lot of online spaces are cesspits, and produce a lot of toxic ideas that then get circulated. Those need to be pushed back on. That being said, I am going to push back a bit on some of the things they have talked about regarding deity work. There’s enough in here that I agree with in some respects that I feel like I am going to have dig into it a bit to be clear on where I disagree.
After exploring some of the ideas I posted on their Twitter feed and talking with friends, I find much of my issue is with baseline definitions. I understand deity work as any work assigned to you by a God. I often place deity work under the catchall term spiritwork, that is, work done on behalf of, for, or with vaettir (spirits), Ancestors, and/or Gods. I do not see prayers, offerings, or any of the normal praxis of a polytheist aka exoteric religion, as being deity work/spiritwork per se.
To quote what I said in the Twitter feed:
When I think of ‘deity work’ I think of stuff assigned to you by the Gods. Not the basic stuff of *being* polytheist like prayers, offerings, etc. Being a spiritworker is a *job* not the baseline of being a polytheist. Hopefully I’m making sense here.
When I use the word spiritwork, spiritworker, and/or vaettirvirkr that means the person is doing work with, for, or on behalf of the Gods, Ancestors, and/or vaettir. Real simple equation to my mind. In the case of ‘working with’ a God it’s to Their end even if it does benefit us.
Even in the cases where I got ‘hired out’ by Óðinn to do things for other Gods it was still in service to Him. When Óðinn came into my life like a whirlwind I could have said no, and did not.
Here is another point of contention: deity work is dangerous. It is dangerous in no small part for many of the reasons they claim it is safe, and thinking on it in the same terms. Gods are as dangerous as They are sacred. Gods that stop plagues can start them, eg Apollo. Gods that can control whether or not you win a battle can make sure you get killed so you come to Valhöll, eg Óðinn. The Gods of Fire that warm our houses have the ability to burn down forests. Our Gods are, to paraphrase CS Lewis, ‘not tame lions’. However, that does not mean that They’re in our lives just to fuck with us or do us harm. I find that, if your life is being flipped upside down by a God entering it then it probably needed to be -though there’s exceptions to every rule since Gods are individual Beings, and so are we.
The Gods do have limits -clearly. Óðinn is not omniscient, frequently refers to other Beings in the stories we have for Their knowledge and wisdom, eg Vafþruðnir and Mímir. This does not make me a selfish asshole. Further, Óðinn is a known oathbreaker. It means that I clearly know my lore and that not every God (or Ancestor or vaettr) should have trust extended unconditionally. Some Gods have very little to do with humanity since They have whole sections of Creation to deal with, deserving no less of our respect and worship. Some Gods are not the gentlest or even the most caring towards humanity. Again, They are deserving of respect and worship even if an individual polytheist chooses not to worship Them. Maybe if you are not interacting with, say, a river God in Their river then They have no reason to really pay you mind. Again, no They are no less deserving of respect or worship. You may just not be as interested in worshiping Them, or They in interacting with you, if you do not live on or near Their river.
Now, I will heartily agree that when it comes to deity work we are not working with the Gods as equals. We simply cannot. We are working for Them, which is why I refer to being a spiritworker as a job. It’s work. However, deity work is not worship.
Worship is the baseline of being a polytheist. It is what each and every polytheist should be doing in whatever their capacity is. It is the action of being a polytheist. Belief in the Gods is the baseline choice that any polytheist should hold. Note, I am not saying perfect faith or any of the other cluttering Christian notions regarding that. Belief in the Gods is a choice, a recognition. Faith is an emotion, transitory at best sometimes. I do not always have faith, but so long as I am a polytheist I have to have belief that the Gods are real and that I worship Them.
I have no disagreement with their bullet points, excepting that the Gods are mostly everywhere. It is too wide a point for me. I do not think that Óðinn or Loki are everywhere. I have no indication They are from either the lore available or my own experiences of Them. It is still monumentally stupid to be two-faced before our Gods, though.
The next point bears some digging into.
“But how do I know if I’m contacting the right entity?”
Now when it comes to addressing prayers to Gods, so long as you’re using the correct names and epithets your prayers are very likely being heard by the God in question. Now when you’re hearing a response of some kind? When you are looking for feedback or input? This is where doing your due diligence is necessary.
I will refer to my Brother Jim Two Snakes on this one: Spiritual Accounting. His breakdown is this: (M+C³)xR = V. M is messages, C is confirmations, R is results, and V is verified. Lore, divination, and community input are the three legs of this stool. Why would we need this? Because we can be mistaken. We can think we are talking to a God and getting input back and its a sock puppet we are fooling ourselves with or a spirit using that form to get attention/energy from us. Sometimes spirits lie. Sometimes we get stuff wrong, or we are not in a good place to experience the Ginnreginn (Holy/Mighty Powers) well at that moment. Working with Spiritual Accounting is a way to make sure that we get as much as we can right.
Unless you are looking for or are getting some kind of response though, this may not even be an active concern for you. Not every polytheist is, nor should be expected to be, a spiritual specialist whether as a spiritworker, priest, or otherwise. It is perfectly acceptable to worship the Gods, Ancestors, and spirits in whatever capacity you can, and live by your life’s philosophy. You may get responses, or you may not; that is not the measure of a polytheist.
I started off my journey as a Pagan with 5 salt crystals in a thimble-sized glass jar. Size of the sacred space your worship takes place in, the offerings you make, and the prayers you make all can change over time. To my mind, these questions are key to the measure of a polytheist regardless of whether you are an individual worshiping at your hearth the size of an Altoid tin, or with a large community the midst of a stone circle:
Are you worshiping, praying to, offering to, and speaking with the Gods, Ancestors, and spirits with respect? Are you worshiping, making prayers, and making offerings in ways that are respectful and in alignment with the religion, traditions, and individual Gods, Ancestors, and spirits you worship? If you are doing deity work, are you doing whatever work you have assigned in a manner your Gods find respectful? Not respect as I understand it. Respect as your Gods, Ancestors, and spirits understand it.
Are you living in good and respectful reciprocity with the Gods, Ancestors, and spirits? That, in my understanding, is the measure of a polytheist. Your worship, and if you have spiritwork, your work, may not look like what others are doing. You are a person in relationships with Gods, Ancestors, vaettir, and communities. Whatever it is, however it is expressed, worship in respect to the best of your ability. If you have it, do your deity work and/or spiritwork in respect to the best of your ability. No one could reasonably expect more.
Patreon Poem/Prayer/Song 42: For Angrboða
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This was requested by Maleck Odinsson for Angrboða.
The air is crisp in Jötunheim’s air
The mountains behind the forest ahead
Silver trees mark the boundaries
Ancient, arching to greet Sunna
The first thing heard is the quiet
The still
Then You are there
Great and seething with Power
Your grey-flecked fur ripples in the evening sun
Your jaws slather with invitation
I am so small beside you
Yet, we speak
You wield the great spear, knife well-adjusted on Your hip
A wolf’s grin as I am weighed under Your gaze
A movement, a bark, and Járnviðr comes alive
Teeming with Your clan
Your Wolf children
Your Snake children
Your Troll children
Your Jötun children
Countless, chaotic
Mother of Monsters
Mother of Many
Chieftain of the Ironwood
Hail to You
Thank You for the invitation
Patreon Topic 35: On Paganism in the Future
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From Maleck Odinsson comes this topic:
“Where do you want to see paganism go in the next 5 years, 10 years, etc?”
This is a hell of a question given Paganism is such a big umbrella. I find thought questions like these fun. I am sure each Pagan branch will go its own way depending on theology (or lack thereof), so I will try to give my answers without writing a novel.
The Next 5 Years
In the next 5 years I would like to see worship of the Gods, Ancestors, and spirits get somewhat equal parity with folks in hearth cultus as well as in the festival circuits that remain. I am starting to see trends in Paganism go this way to start with, which is a good thing. Why? Some folks balance to one group of Beings, and some do not which in and of itself is a good thing. We cannot be all things to all Beings. However, I think that generally most Pagans really need a balance, as there tends to be an emphasis on building good relationships with Gods to the exclusion of Ancestors and spirits. While it is good folks are building relationships with Gods, overlooking Ancestors and spirits neglects our duties to and relationships with those who came before us, and the spirits with which we live. In rebalancing this, trends within Paganism can be more oriented around where we live and how we live there.
This leads into my next point where I would like to see Paganism go in the next 5 years: regional cultus and ecological integration. Pagan religions, despite often being called earth-centered religions, tend to not have a lot of connection with their local environments. Some folks are still celebrating harvest festivals on arbitrary dates based on the Gregorian calendar. At least in the Heathen circles and some other polytheist religion circles I am in this is beginning to change as we apply reconstruction to our mindset on how we develop our worldview now, not just the accoutrement or the broader strokes of our religions.
We can see more regional variations of practice that deepen meaning of our practice of and engagement with religion for the average Pagan. That is not to say that, for instance, Pagans need to give up the Wiccan Sabbats if that is what works for them. What this means is that we orient our understanding of the Sabbats more around our lived world. Imbolc is one of the holidays that is least celebrated in my experience, and for good reason: few of us raise sheep, and we are not yet out of winter, given it is February 1st. So, to adapt that to Michigan we might emphasize the life-giving fire, cleansing, cleaning, and the like.
For Mímisbrunnr Kindred we celebrate Dísirblót around the last Friday in February. This more or less comports to the historical celebration’s time. It is a time of offering to the powerful female Ancestors, who protect, organize, and care for our Ancestral lines. Given the cold of the month this celebration allows us time to think on the struggles our Ancestors went through, the warmth and blessing of home and hearth, the unsung workers who made everything from clothes to blankets that allowed them and their families to survive, and those who toiled throughout the year so the family made it through the winter.
By adapting our practices to where we live and living in better concert with our environment, by comporting our relationships with our Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir in this way, we bring even more of our religion into our everyday life. By integrating Them into our lived experiences we invite Them to share our lives. While I am seeing Pagan communities move towards this, I would really like to see them do so in the next 5 years.
The Next 10 Years
I would like to see Pagans building lasting intergenerational institutions. We have had a few successes in this, given that the ATC (Aquarian Tabernacle Church), ADF (Ar Draoight Fein, A Druid Fellowship), OBOD (Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids), The Troth, and others have handed over responsibility to new generations of administrators. However, few of these groups, let alone Pagan groups in general ( though ATC is foremost in my mind for one that does) have permanent installations. Given I am part of an effort in Crossing Hedgerows Sanctuary to create a lasting intergenerational Pagan space I would like many more of these efforts to spring up all over the world.
This does not mean that I only want to see permanent temples, hofs, and sanctuaries. I want institutions of all sizes. I would like to see more roadside shrines, and the kind of simple but beautiful shrine to Mercury that was erected in the NYC subway. I would like to see more public celebrations of our Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir with art such as murals, spraypaintings, and Godpoles. We have so much to offer our Gods, Ancestors, vaettir, and communities if we just started to do what is within us to do, no matter how it is starting off.
Taking cues from the previous section, I would like to see Pagan cultures really flourish in the places where they are. I am beginning to see this with folks taking the time to develop relationship and worship their local rivers, groves, and landvaettir. It is also being felt by how people are constructing their holidays around the cycles where they live. I would also like us to take more cues from the home cultures we take inspiration from, such as what Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen is doing with his Nordic Animist project. Together, these two dovetail into developing a whole culture, one that integrates where we live and how we live into our worldview so there is nothing left out.
It is within our capacity and, I believe, our duty as Pagans, to live well upon and with the Earth and all we share this world with. We must put our beliefs into action where we live and how we live. Crossing Hedgerows Sanctuary and Farm is one part of what could be an entire web of community works that integrates learning, DIY skills, permaculture, and Paganism. I would like to see Pagans make serious strides towards supporting local farmers, eg a Pagan community buys a CSA membership, a pig, a cow, etc and shares it with its community members. Growing our own heirloom varietals, seed saving, or at the least supporting the members of our communities who do are ways we can start now and build up for the future. If we start doing this now, we could develop our own entire strains of locally-harvested and locally-produced food to at least supplement our communities’ intakes.
Something my friend Nick turned me on to was the idea of integrating our ecological awareness with our religious practice. His example was shrines to the Sun and Sun Gods at our solar panels. Let us take this out further: shrines to windvaettir and wind Gods at wind turbines, shrines to our landvaettir and various Gods of the Earth in our gardens and homes. The possibilities here, and the way these are integrated into a more wholistic model of living are endless.
I would like to see more systems of mutual aid within and between Pagan communities. We have seen the start of it, with Pagans in Need having begun its mission years ago and now expanded to 3 sites in Michigan. We can do so much more, and it starts with the support folks like PIN need, whose Patreon is here. There are likely other groups putting together mutual aid work projects, but this is the one I know from my backyard. With 10 years of good community investment PIN and its mission can grow. So can any similar community mutual aid we choose to invest our time, money, labor, and energy in.
It is not enough to just take care of each other in life. I want to see the good I have seen in the Death Doula community become more widespread. I want us to be able to choose how we die and when, and for that itself to be an honored and respected process. I want folks to have access to spiritual specialists to aid in the process of decline and dying. I want places for our Dead to rest, whether these are cemeteries, mausoleums, groves, grave mounds, etc, and people to tend them. These can be potent gathering places in addition to our other temples, shrines, hofs, and so on.
The Roads Ahead
I want us to honor the past, live in the present, and work to build a future that is centered in our values, our philosophies, our ideals, and our callings. I want to see Pagan communities ground ourselves in traditions that grow and adapt with change, retaining their solid foundations so that we build our communities well. I want to see Pagan communities that give rise to generations living more integrated, healthy, and whole lives that build upon our understanding of how we are to live well on and with the Earth, and with each other.
In the end what I would really like to see from the Pagan communities in the next 5-10 years is to grow in culture. I want to see Pagan communities supporting converts and parents that raise their kids in their religions, for us to support both newer and older folk alike, and for lasting institutions, grounded in our senses of duty and responsibility, to grow well. I want to see our Pagan communities taking care of each other, doing well by each other, and providing mutual aid to each other. I want to see us live well with our Gods, Ancestors, vaettir, and each other.
Sarenth Odinsson 